Process and apparatus for reducing ores and producing cement



Dec. 29 1925. 1,567,934

A. FERGUSON PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR REDUCING ORES AND PRODUCING CEMENT Filed March 13, 1925 A2 EXAM/DER fZ- auso/v a, m

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All? mm'rus FOB mnome 0318 PBODI TUING Application fled larch 18, 1938. Serial Io. 15,870.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Annxannnn Fnnonsort, a subject of the King of Great Britain, residing at 104 Addison Gardens, in the count 5 of London, England, have invented new an useful Improvements in a and Apparatus for Reducing Ores an Producing Cement for which I filed an application in Great Britain Dec. 19, 1923), 0 which the following is a specification. j I

This invention relates to proc of, and apparatus for smeltin or reducing segregated particles of ore in which the material a to be treated is delivered in a constant stream 5 and spread in a fine cloud into an enlarged space in the upfp'enpart of a furnace.

The object 0 this invention is to provide improved means whereby oxide ores and especially iron oxide ores can be smelted or further object is the continuous pr notion of the M15801 which for the purposes of descriptio wil be referred to as iron) and 26 its economical'production in superior qual- The present invention mainly consists in the steps of introducinlg1 into the top of a furnace and spreading t erein finely ivided metallic ore, having intermixed therewith 3 any desired ingredients of. cement making material as fluxes. This material is introduced in the form of a fine cloud of preheated segregated particles of dust at the top of a furnace of trumrfig-like form having presentin a space contracting in cross-sectional area m the upper art to the lower part, communicating at the ottom with a receptacle for receiving the molten iron. The iron in its passage 40 through this furnace is subjected to heat from a rapidl rotating or whirling flame produced by t e coipbustion of air and gas admitted tangential y into the furnace. i e material is introduced an enlarged space situated above the entrance of the com ustible gases into the furnace, and heated by the radiant heat of the flame. In this space the slags are fused and together with the semi-fused segregated particles of iron are sucked from this enlarged space into the vortex created by the whirling gases, which sub ect them to such heat that the iron particles are reduced, becoming quite fluid and of viscosity. Through the action of the whirling combustion gases the now molten material will be expelled by centrifugal force out of the whirlingugases and onto the converging walls of the rnace down which the fused and reduced material will then roll intoa receptacle. I employ (beside the metallic ore) any necessary uxes, which may be of the kmd'employed in smelting iron in blast furnaces and are such as will serve to form sla ,to make, or assist in making, cement, so t at the reduction, or smelting, of the ore and the production of both iron and cement can be carried on simultaneously and great economy of heat be reahzed (consequent on the use of carbon A dioxide from the carbonate of lime of the fluxes and the-great reduction of nitrogen usually accompanying air in blast furnaces) as compared wit processes in which the operations of smelting, or reduction with air and solid fuel, or oi, and cement making, are carried on separately and consequently I efiect great saving in fuel as well as expediting the processes.

The fuel can be retorted in a chamber, or retort, practicall free from air, and a soft coke be produ by low temperature carbonization, the said coke bein eminentl suitable for use in a gas pr ucer, whic may constitute part of the plant the gases from the retorted fuel being used tabs; producer gases in the gas flue if so The ore and fluxi material in the requisite state as regar fineness of division and heat are passed to above the inlet to the aforesaid furnace, preferably through another preheater, in which the finel vided mixture of fluxing material an ore thoroughly mixed, is raised to a higher temperature, say to, or about, 1000 centigrade, to drive off thecarbon-dioxide in the uxes. Owing to the endothermic reactibn in thus driving off the carbon-dioxide the temperature will be lowered and the saidsmixture will enter the furnace at a temperhture of to enrich say about 850 centigrade. The ore and fluxing material enter the furnace together and are spread outin the form of a cloud of segregated particles of dust which are fused in-the upper part of the furnace and then sucked into the vortex created by the whirlipfi gases from the gas reducer a d are t e 11 up thereby and w irled round the furnace, the necessary reactions voccurring immediately owing tothe high temperature obtained (say about 1,800 centigrade) at this lpoint and to the large surface exposed b t a tion, the liquefied particles 'of slag as soon as they are formed, being'ex elled, along with the liquefied particles 0 iron, onto the walls of the furnace by the centrifugal action, the said slag and lI'OIl descending against the inclined -and converging walls of the furnace to a crucible, or the eiuivalent, below, into which the lower end. 0

the furnace opens, whilst the volatile matters and products of combustion, whirling around and drawn to the centre of the furnace and away from its walls, escape, and if desired any of the said volatile matters and roducts of combustion which may be valuable can be recovered by ordinary or any suitable means. The iron separates b gravity, in the said crucible, or its uivalhnt, over which the combustion pro ucts pass at a hi h tem erature and maintain the slag and iron fluid. The liquefied iron is tapped oil as required'at a temperature of 1600 centigrade the sla overflowing into a rotating clinkerin rum, or other mixer, wherein they mayie joined by, and mixed with, other cement-making ingredients, heated to say about 1000 centigrade, to drive off carbon-dioxide and then the temperature of the escaping gases will have lowered from say about 1,800 to about 1,550 centigrade and the clinker to about 1,350 centigrade,-that is to the temperature of cement clinker. The mass is then cooled, which may be done in a rotary cooler by which the air, for the combustion of the carbon-monoxide from the producer that may be needed in excess of the oxygen in the ores, can be heated to say between 600? and 700 centigrade. The air from the rptary cooler and gas from the producer can pass by flues through a recuperator and be heated therein by the combustion roducts, passing in a reverse direction, to a ut say 1,000 centigrade, at which temperature they enter the furnace. The carbon-dioxide driven off from the second preheaters, may be sucked out by an ejector and carried to the incandescent zone of the gasreducer, or down the up-fiue, or throng the recuperator chambers by pipes to the incandescent zone of the said gas-producer at a temperature at which the carbomdioxide becomes, in the presence of the carbon, converted to am e smallness of the particles under re-- hon-monoxide (without dilution by nitrogen) which is afterwards burned in the urnaceto carbon dioxide and thereby reduces the inert nitrogen in the combustion products and permits of a much higher temperature of the reducn flame with the consumption of but one-third of the amount of.

fuel usually consumed.

In describin how my invention may be performed I will refer to the accompanying rawing which represents in elevation and more, or less, diagrammatically, the general arrangement of a plant adapted for carrying out the process in accordance with ma said invention.

he raw ores and the necessary solid fluxing materials in the required. roportions, are finely ground so as to pass, or example, through a sieve of a mesh of 60, or more, to the inch and are fed into any suitable preheater (indicated at A) wherein they are mixed by any suitable means (for example by a traveling drag-rabble), the coal, or other suitable fuel being likewise brought to a similar fine state of'division and heated in a retort (indicated at A) by the waste heat from the re'cuperator F, to about 400 centi ade and the'ores and fluxing materi etc about 500 centigrade. The fuel is conveyed from the retort A by any suitable air-tight conve or (not shew-n) to an air-tight valve *b t rough which it passes onto, and through, a distributor b? 1n the roducer B' to orm the fuel-bed b". The ely divided ores and fluxes are passed by any suitable means such, for example, as by an air-tight elevator, not shewn, from the preheater A to a second preheater C which is over the furnace proper D. They are, in the reheater 0, further mixed, (for examp e, by a rabble-calciner c) and heated to about 1,000 centigrade, which temperature however is reduced to about 850 centigrade by reason of the driving oil of the carbondioxide from the calcium carbonate of the fluxes. The materials thatare used as fluxes maybe thosethat are required for cement less those that are already in the ores which change according to the nature of the substancein which the material is embedded. If required other cement making materials may be added, in their proper proportions, to the matrix materials which are heated in preheaterC. At a tem erature of over 850 centigrade the ores an fluxes are caused to pass, from the preheater-C and distributed y a spreader a in the form of a fine cloud of dust, into the furnace D, and subjected. to the flame heat. The .heat here being about 1,800 centigrade, or above that temperature, will. cause'the metallieparticles to be rapidly smelted by the heat of the whirling flame derived from the almost nitrogen-fre producer gas. The carbon-dioxide from the calcium carbonate is drawn i preheater E, heated by the otherwise waste amp out of the preheater ,C and from a pre heater E for additional cement mater als (shown as being provided with a mixing, rabble e) at a temperature of from about 850 to 1,000 centigrade and conveyedby the ipes c and e respectively, to the incanescent zone of the roducer B, into which it issues from beneath the distributing hood b shown with air admitted b the pipe b and meets the carbon of the el heated to considerably over 1,000 centi ade. The reaction between the carbonioxide and carbon at this tem erature produces carbonmonoxide with which, of course, there is pil'aetically no nitrogen, although, as some el has to be supplied to the pioducer B to counteract the loss of heat due to the endothermic reaction from the formation of carbon-monoxide, the nitrogen in the air is usedto burn this fuel andalthough it may accompany the producer gas into the furnace D 1t is so small in uantity as to be practically negli ible, and oes not interfere with the atta nment of the requisite high temperature therein nor with the economy effected by the absence of the large amount of nitrogreninevitable with the quantity of air hitherto employed in making producer as. The absence of this large amount "o nitrogen from the process according to m inventionalso enables (with a great redubtion-in fuel) a much better obtainment -of the required heat to smeltvthe cloud of fed into e furnace D, presenting a very large surface to the action of the heat and, besides lesse the time required for the operation, also aciliitates the driving off in a gaseous state of volatile matter from the ores, such as sulphur phosphorus and carbon. If desired other metals, non-volatile at the temperatui e of this process, such for instance, as tungsten, manganese, chromium, cobalt, molybdenum, nickehtitanium, and vanadium, can be alloyed with the produced metal by introducing finely divided ores of the desired metal, or metals, into Y the preheater A and feeding them ,to the furnace D and the liqui furnace D with the other materials.

'As the temperature of the slag coming over fromthe crucible J is in excess of that.-

desirable for cement clinker a quantity of cement-forming material is heated up to from about 850 to 1,000 centigrade, in the eat of the combustion roducts from the d slag run onto the unfused fine cement-making material delivcred into a rotatable clinkering drum G and the reaction, caused by the loss of heat the high temperature slag, reduces the resultant temperature of the cement material to about 1,800 to 1350 centigrade being the temperature o the resulting clinker which is then. passed through a rotary cooler H plreheat'ed and finely divided era 13 through which "sold iii ispumped, theair passing-around the;dr'um G and through the pipe to the recuperator F and thence by the pipe f to the bustle pipe f to mect'the gas arriving from thebustle-pipe b which is in communication with the producer B,

through the flue b, the gas and air meeting, at burners. arranged tangentially in :the

furnaceD (as indicated at d) in an suitcenti ademay, if desired, pass through any suita 1e pipe s,"or conduits, into a glass making (ap aratus, or into 'a cla furnace such as isls own and described 1n specification No. 154251, or to any other desired place, or be passeddirect by the pipe e to the preheater C above the furnace D arriving at the recuperator F at about 1300" centigrade and may if required heatthe producer gas to 1000 centi rade, which maybe effected by conveying the gas from the fiue b of producer B by means of a by-pass not shown) into the recuperatbr F from w ich it subsequently passes through a pipe (not shown) to the bustle pipe I). The temperature of the combustion products falls in the recuperator F to about 1,100 centigrade at which tem erature it may pass to a steam boiler (in icated at I) and give up its beat down to say about 650 which is sufiicient to generate all power: required throughout the plant) whence it passes below the preheater A of ore and fluxing material and below the coal, or other fuel, retort A and thence to a chimney, or exhaust fan (at sa about 220 centigrade) or to other places where its heat can be utilized, for example to a desiccating plant for drying brine, for soda plant, or for desiccating milk, fish, fruit, ve etables, or the like. The steam from the bo1ler I can be used, if so desired, for power. Iron requires to be tapped at,1600 centigrade and therefore it usually necessitates a flame temperature of nearly 1800" centis grade or over, at the burners d but, in the process according to my invention, the fur-- 1700" centigrade. It will be understood that the shape of the furnace D is such aswill permit of the gases of combustion and the particles of the materials" whirling around producing a vortex, or area of low ressure 1n the centreof, the furnace flame,

lIltO which 'vor'tex, or area, the finely dividedore and particles of fiuxing material are delivered and spread out (by a mixer and spreader a forming a cloud *cosity of the fluid slags.

The combustion gases in the process according to my invention will not contain unburnt combustible and, as very little nitrogen passes into the furnace, ver little nitrogen comes out, as the oxygen 0 the ore combines, without added air, with the carbonmonoxide of the producer gas. Besides this all volatilizahle materials will pass ed as gases which will carry away phosphorus, sulphur and carbon rendering the metal obtained alniost, if not entirel a steel, or steel 1;

alloy if ores of other meta s are introduced into the furnace.

The metal thus obtained in the furnace D and therefrom in the crucible J passes by gravitation down throu h the fused slags and and can'be drawn 0 by a tapping out let 7', at the bottom of the said crucible and the slag and other materials will overflow and run 03 through the pipe into'the rotatin' drum G meeting the cement making materia s delivered into the said drum from the preheaterE by the mixer e. The constitution of the cement clinker can be regulated by altering the proportions of fused and unfused materials fed into the preheaters C and E and the clinker so formed can be driven forward in vthe clinkering drum G and thence into the rotary cooling tube H through which cold air is driven prises spre and so is heated for eventual use in the furnace D and also in the producer B if so desired. Any cement material which may leave the cooler H can be ulverized which is preferably done in a ydrogencharged atmosphere. The heat instead of bei taken b the pi e 4: direct from beneat the pre cater to the preheater C may, on its way thereto, be passed to other place where the heatcan be further utilized;

1 instance, it can be taken to a furnace for producing glass in accordance with specification No. 154251, granted to me, and thereafter be taken to a glass moulding machine for example, in accordance with specification No. 154252, granted to me, but such glass making and moulding constitute no part of myxwpresent invention. 5

at I claim is: a

1. A metallur 'cal method which comely divided ore in a cloud into a generally upwardly moving column of reducing gas at a meltin tem rature.

2. Ametallurgical me odw 'chcomprises the reduced metal by centrifugal force upon a surrounding wall, and collecting the molten metal by gravity in ,a receptacle below the vortex zone. J

3. An ore-reducingand cementroducing' process comprising driving 0 carbon dioxide from cement-forming slag material, and other cement-forming -material, passing said carbon dioxide through the bed of a gas producer to form carbon monoxide, blowi said carbon monoxide together with air tangentiallv into a furnace there forming a vortex of reducing gases, feeding finely divided ore and cementforming slag material in a cloud into said vortex, de ositin by centridigal orce upon a surrounding wall, collecting the molten metal and slag y gravity in a receptacle below the vortex zone drawing ofl' slag from the molten metal in the receptacle, and mingling and. tumbling with said sla the cement-forming material first referr to, thereby forming a clinker. g

4. In a rocess for smelting oxide ores to metals, t e steps of introducing finely divided metallic ore together with a powdered cement-making fluxing material in a constant stream into the top of a furnace and spreading same in said top, introduclng preheated air and fuel tangentially into the top of said furnace and there burning them in a whirling flame forming a vortex at its center, sucking the finely divided metallic ore and fluxing material into the vortex and there fusing it, then expellin the fused ore and flux material by centri gal force to the walls of the furnace, and rmitting the fused ore and fiuxing materia to roll down the walls of the furnace into a receptacle.

5. In a process for smeltin oxide ores in a furnace as set forth in claim 4, the'step of drivin ofl' carbon dioxide from metallic ore and uxing material by heating prior to their introduction into the furnace.

6. In the process described in claim 4, preheating and freeing from carbon dioxide the ore and the flux -material by the heat of the products of combustion.

7. A metallurgical process which comprises forming a vortex of reducing gasesat a temperature sufliciently hi h to allow molten material to be tap spreading finely divided metallic ore in a cloud into said vortex, subjecting said metallic ore to such heat in said vortex that the iron particles are reduced, and expelling the molten material centrifugally through the action of the whirling gases, depositing said molten material upon a surrounding wall, whence it rolls down into a receptacle.

8. A metallurgical process which com- Frises forming a vortex of reducing gases argely consisting of carbon monoxide at a temperature sufliciently high to allow molten material to be tapped, spreading finely 5 divided metallic ore in a cloud into the vortex, there reducing said ore by the action of said carbon monoxide, and subsequently expelling the molten material centrifugally throizlgh the action of the whirling gases, and epositing the molten material upon a 1' surrounding wa-ll, whence it rolls down into a receptacle.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification.

ALEXANDER FERGUSON.

rises forming a vortex of reducing gases throulgh the action of the whirling gases,

argely consisting of carbon monoxide at a and epos tlng the molten mater1al upon a 1 temperature sufliciently high to allow molten surroundlng wall, whence it rolls down mto material to be tapped, spreading finely a receptacle.

5 divided metallic ore in a cloud into the vor- In testimony whereof I have signed my tex, there reducing said ore by the action of name to this specification. said carbon monoxide, and subsequently expelling the molten material centrifugally ALEXANDER FERGUSON.

Certificate of Correction.

It is herein?l certified that in Letters Patent No. 1,567,934, anted December 29, 1925, upon t e application of Alexander Ferguson, of Lon on, England, for an improvement in Processes and Apparatus for Reducing Ores' and Producin Cement, errors appear in the printed specification requiring correction as follows: Page 2, line 81, strike out the word necessary; page 4, line 3, for the word parts read particles; and that the said Letters Patent should be read with these corrections therein that the same may conform to the record of the case in the Patent Ofiice.

Signed and sealed this 26th day of January, A. D. 1926.

[scan] WM. A. KINNAN,

Acting Commissioner of Patents.

Certificate of Correction.

It is hereb certified that in Letters Patent No. 1,567 ,934, anted December 29, 1925, upon t e application of Alexander Ferguson, of Lon on, England, for an improvement in Processes and Apparatus for Reducing Ores' and Produvinfl Cement, errors appear in the printed specification requiring correction as follows: Page 2, line 81, strike out the word necessary; page 4, line 3, for the Word parts read particles; and that the said Letters Patent should be read with these corrections therein that the same may conform to the record of the case in the Patent Ofiioe.

Signed and sealed this 26th day of January, A. D. 1926.

[SEAL] WM. A. KINNAN,

Acting Comniasioner of Patents. 

